Configuring Ubuntu 13.04 on Sony VAIO VPCSB36FN [Eliminates Overheating and fan noise problems on AMD radeon/Intel hybrid graphics system]

This post is for the ease of VAIO users specially with model VPCSB36FN or with Intel/AMD hybrid system to set up whole Ubuntu from one single post. The changes are old but they still work for me and have been for a long time, so please use them carefully.

I am using Ubuntu 13.04, so people trying these changes on any other system is on your own risk.

1. Disabling the AMD discrete graphics.

I have disabled the AMD discrete graphics on my laptop because i never use it anyway. Intel graphics are more than enough.For that I have used “vgaswitcheroo” . It disables the radeon at boot and thus giving us better battery power and also no fan noise. The battery backup increases from half hour to around 3 hours.

For vgaswitcheroo to work properly, you must add modeset = 1 to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.

The grub will look something like this :

After putting modeset = 1, we need to add following lines to /etc/rc.local

chown $username:$username /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch
echo OFF > /sys/kernel/debug/vgaswitcheroo/switch

Replace usename with your own username.

The file will look something like this :

Theses settings will turn off your discrete graphics.

The kernel messages will look something like this :

shobhit@Terminator:~$ dmesg | grep switch
[ 12.767679] VGA switcheroo: detected switching method \_SB_.PCI0.GFX0.ATPX handle
[ 13.286545] Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 128x48
[ 13.313985] vga_switcheroo: enabled
[ 17.989031] radeon: switched off

2. Some editing in GRUB to enable power settings :

There are certain settings , that are not enabled by default in the GRUB. Enabling them will help you achieve better power saving settings from your processor.

Add the following lines to GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT.

i915.i915_enable_rc6=1 i915.i915_enable_fbc=1 i915.lvds_downclock=1 acpi=on acpi_backlight=vendor

This will also make sure that the back light of your led will be at lowest brightness level when you boot up your system and hence more power/battery.

The above GRUB screen shot has everything configured.

3. Some useful tools :

Install unity rweak tool and conpiz config settings manager to customise the system more. I have also installed a wonderful terminal called Guake. Very handy tools.

For Unity-tweak tool:

sudo sudo apt-get install unity-tweak-tool

For compiz-config manager :

sudo apt-get install compizconfig-settings-manager

For Guake :

sudo apt-get install guake

PS :

These are some screenshots of my temperature and battery life :

Using lm-sensors.

Using powertop.